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Transportation

Americans have always been a people on the move—on rails, roads, and waterways (for travel through the air, visit the National Air and Space Museum). In the transportation collections, railroad objects range from tools, tracks, and many train models to the massive 1401, a 280-ton locomotive built in 1926. Road vehicles include coaches, buggies, wagons, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and automobiles—from the days before the Model T to modern race cars. The accessories of travel are part of the collections, too, from streetlights, gas pumps, and traffic signals to goggles and overcoats.

In the maritime collections, more than 7,000 design plans and scores of ship models show the evolution of sailing ships and other vessels. Other items range from scrimshaw, photographs, and marine paintings to life jackets from the Titanic.

On April 26, 1607, three passenger ships reached the shores of modern-day Virginia. The largest, named the Susan Constant, carried 54 members of a 105-man colonization mission. Arriving thirteen years before the Pilgrims landed at what is now Plymouth, Mass., this group of Englishmen came in search of gold and glory in the New World under the direction of the Virginia Company. Their founding of Jamestown began a long and checkered chapter in American colonial history.

Built in 1605 near London, and leased from Dapper, Wheatley, Colthurst and Partners, the Susan Constant was barely a year old when the Jamestown passengers spotted land near Cape Henry at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Under the command of Captain Christopher Newport, the journey from London to Virginia took approximately four and a half months. Following its departure on December 20, 1606, the Susan Constant spent six weeks floating idly in the English Channel, waiting for the right winds to carry the passengers to their new lives. Unlike the colonists, the Susan Constant did not stay in Virginia, but sailed back to England filled with timber.

In the past, there has been some confusion over whether the ship’s name was Susan or Sarah Constant. According to a 1625 manuscript transcribed by Rev. Samuel Purchas, when discussing the journey of the Jamestown settlers, His Majesty King James I’s Council on Virginia referred to a ship named Sarah Constant. However, multiple accounts given by the original colonists, as well as the leasing companies, indentify the ship as Susan Constant or, more simply, Susan. No record of a Sarah Constant has ever been found in sources from the time period, and historians have since chalked the confusion up to a clerical error on the part of the Council.

In 1991, the Commonwealth of Virginia financed a $2.14 million life-sized reproduction of the Susan Constant. The ship took a short tour of the Chesapeake Bay area in 2007 as part of Jamestown’s 400th Anniversary Celebration, and can now be seen in the Jamestown Settlement National Park.

This model of the Susan Constant was given to the Smithsonian in 1998 as a gift from its builder, John W. Chapman.

This model of a Chesapeake Bay log canoe was built in 1880 and displayed at the Great International Fisheries Exhibition in London in 1883. It shows a two-masted log canoe with a mustard-colored hull. Although this model may look more like a recreational sailboat than a traditional paddling canoe, its roots can be traced back to the dugouts built and used by American Indians. Native Americans along the bay used dugouts, made by hollowing out a single tree trunk, to spear fish, gather oysters, and travel from one village to another. Europeans adopted the log-canoe technology shortly after arriving in the region in the early 1600s. By the start of the 18th century, colonists had modified the standard, single-log dugout, by hewing and shaping several logs and fitting them together to enlarge the craft. They added masts and sails, providing the means to travel farther and giving the vessels their distinctive appearance.

Despite the widespread use of frame-and-plank shipbuilding techniques around the Chesapeake, watermen continued building and using log canoes well into the 20th century. The canoes were ideal for oyster tonging in the many protected creeks and rivers that flow into the bay. This model includes a pair of hand tongs of the sort made by local blacksmiths for oystermen. A waterman would anchor his canoe over an oyster bed and lower the tongs into the water. With a scissoring motion, he would rake the tongs together until the iron basket was full and ready to be lifted onboard.

In terms of construction, the log canoe is the forerunner to the bugeye, which is essentially an enlarged canoe built of seven or nine logs with a full deck added over the hold. While log canoes are no longer used in commercial fishing, they can still be seen in special sailboat races on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake.

By the later 19th century, guns had replaced most hand harpoons and lances, since they were far more efficient and deadly to the prey. They also could be shot from a safer distance from the prey than the hand tools could be wielded. The darting gun was one of the more popular types. Loaded with different darts, this versatile weapon could be used both for harpooning and killing whales.

This particular gun was displayed at the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibition in London, England. After the display ended, it was donated to the Smithsonian by its inventor, Capt. Eben Pierce of New Bedford, Mass.